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Monday, March 7, 2011

Tomball, Texas

Had a great sleep at the Walmart in Beeville, Texas. A couple of readers (thank you Evelyn and John and Ellen!) mentioned Spring Creek Park in Tomball, Texas as a possible destination, so that’s where we headed.

Spring Creek Park is a county park that has only eight sites, and they are full hookups. And they are totally FREE. We only have a cell phone for emergency use, so we didn’t call them but instead filled out their online reservation form.

Half way there, we stopped for a rest and internet and found that they had responded saying there was no availablity for tonight. We figured that we want to avoid the metro Houston area, so we would head to the park anyhow and just see what it was like.

We drove 208 miles (333 kms) and arrived at the park around 3:15pm. There was one empty site. The signs say no setting up until you check with a ranger, so we went for a walk with Whiskey to try to find one. We figured that even if we couldn’t park in a site that maybe they would let us dry camp somewhere.

Couldn’t find a ranger, so we went back to Sherman and decided to at least put Sherman into the site and empty the holding tanks and fill up with fresh water. After all, the sites are free. Eventually a ranger came by and I went and asked about using the vacant site despite the fact that we had been told they were full. He went and checked, and said that we were fine for the one night. So not sure if they had a cancellation or what. Anyhow, that’s where we parked for the night.

Full hookups (even has a 50A outlet) for FREE.

Just for fun, I tried our Mexican TelCel intenet stick. Sure enough, it picked up a roaming signal from AT&T but it said that it wanted something like $46 for 5 days use. Yes, it was definitely dollars, not pesos!

Does anybody have any suggestions for the best cellular internet stick that is pay-as-you-go?

We have Virgin Broadband and have been happy with it. It gets slow and a little bogged down after school and after dinner here in FL but I suspect they all do. It does not have coverage in Yuma as the carrier is Sprint and they have no tower there.

It cost us $79 for the stick and the monthly cost has just gone up to $50 It is pay as you go. Like I say, we have been happy with it. Skype works with it as long as you are reasonably close to a tower.

All Radio Shacks and some WalMarts carry them. Yiu have to buy time at Radio Shacks as they will not accept a Canadian credit card for online time purchases.

Sam and Donna...The only place we are really planning on staying for a bit is in Cross, SC. Then making a run for Nova Scotia when we know we have a good window for the weather. We will still try and find places along the way for some hikes or a quick look around whenever we have the time.

George and Suzie...Sorry already left. We are going to spend the night at the Isle of Capri Casino in Lake Charles. Let us know your route and maybe we will be able to meet up somewhere along the way.

Croft...Thanks for the info. Not sure if we will get one or not as we will only be in the States 3 weeks and generally internet is easy to find.

WBY...We are able to find it in most places but there are still times when we can't get it in certain place that we camp, like here at the park in Tomball. It's only for one night so that isn't bad but if we get somewhere that we like we want to stay a while, that's when it can be a problem. We will sort something out.

Kevin & Ruth, I have a Virgin Mobile stick that I bought at Radio Shack with a Canadian credit card and can it is pay as you go and anytime I update it with the same card and you can get a month for $10.00. It works well. Dale & Mary-Lou

Okay, this is a long story... you better make yourself comfortable! Some of our long time readers might remember that I (Kevin) need to ge...

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